Catholic Church saves
$62 million on sexual abuse claims(Sydney Morning Herald) Dec 6 - The Catholic Church avoided paying up to $62 million in compensation to
sexual abuse victims by creating the controversial Melbourne Response program,
which capped payments at $50,000 for each victim.

INTERNATIONAL
STORIES

Islam

‘Muslim-Free’ gun shop
owner claims legal victory(Sydney Morning Herald) Dec 2 - Washington: A US federal judge has quashed a lawsuit filed by a Muslim
advocacy organisation against a Florida gun shop owner who made headlines this
year by declaring his business a "Muslim-Free Zone".

Religious
Violence

US Muslims feel backlash
after Paris and California attacks(Sydney Morning Herald) Dec 5 - Washington: Rabia Chaudry kept her seven-year-old daughter home from
her private Islamic school in Maryland on Thursday, fearing an anti-Muslim
backlash from Wednesday's massacre nearly 4800 kilometres away in San
Bernardino, California.

Only power-sharing
political solution or crushing occupation can defeat IS(Sydney Morning Herald) Dec 6 – (Opinion: Thomas Friedman) When President Vladimir Putin of Russia
announced he was setting up an airbase in the middle of Syria to take on
Islamic State and bolster President Bashar al-Assad, more than a few analysts
and politicians praised his forceful, game-changing, strategic brilliance,
suggesting that Putin was crazy like a fox.

Also:
Politicians should have
taken on the Grand Mufti with intelligent argument (The Age, Melbourne) Dec 3 – (Opinion: Julie Szego) Australian politicians are ill-equipped for the
high-stakes battle of ideas that is needed if we are to When the Grand Mufti of
Australia invited us to debate the "causative factors" behind the
Paris terror attacks our political leaders should have risen to the challenge.

RELIGION
& SOCIETY

Comedy is a weapon and
the joke is on Islamic State(Sydney Morning Herald) Nov 30 – (Opinion: Clare Murphy) There was a change to your Christmas
television programming you may have missed last year - SBS pulled a scheduled
screening of Four Lions, a black comedy about four dim-witted, wannabe
jihadists whose attempts to wage violent extremism are held back by their own
ineptitude.

Christmas lobbying may
fall on deaf ears(Sydney Morning Herald) Dec 3 – (Opinion: John Warhurst) Religious groups seeking the release of
asylum-seeker children and families in detention are realistic about their
chances of success.